Obamacare: Republicans ask FDA for exchange promotion explanation

Republicans on the Senate health committee have asked FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg to provide legal reasons for sending email alerts encouraging people to sign up for the law’s new insurance exchanges.

The FDA is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services but won’t be heavily involved in implementing the law’s main provisions.

Republicans also asked how much the FDA has spent in supporting implementation of the healthcare law and where the money came from.

Meanwhile, a recent report shows that the Affordable Care Act could result in an increasing number of hospital mergers after the law is fully implemented in 2014.

In a PwC report this month about Massachusetts health care, researchers said the state’s health care trends, including more hospital consolidation, are likely to be mirrored nationwide. PwC, also known as PricewaterhouseCoopers, said one-third of the state’s 70 hospitals have merged, acquired or partnered with another system in the first six years since Massachusetts implemented a universal health care program in 2007. Another 20 percent are talking about doing so. Less than 10 percent of Massachusetts hospitals are fully independent.

Massachusetts’ hospital operating margins fell in the first years after the state implemented its universal insurance program, which became a model for the federal health care law.